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Speculation On the Doomed Satellite
scim writes "Intelligent speculation has led one knowledgeable observer to believe the satellite recently announced to have failed is a radar satellite named USA 193. According to an earlier story on the satellite: 'The experimental L-21 classified satellite, built for the National Reconnaissance Office at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, was launched successfully on Dec. 14 [2006] but has been out of touch since reaching its low-earth orbit.'" The ArmsControlWonk story leads off with what purports to be a photo from the ground of USA 193.
Yeah, have fun with the hydrazine.
Personally, I wouldn't want to keep anything that's flammable, explosive, toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic. At least it's not radioactive...
I'm surrounded by assholes.
If your state is not a legitimate democracy, it has no right to exist
Odd reasoning there. I can think of quite a few countries that are most definitely not legitimate democracies - China (who basically bankrolls the US thus ensuring it is free to oppress its population), North Korea (who pokes its nose at the US every other week, to no reaction whatsoever, while murdering its own citizens), Burma (saw all those dead monks? did the US government do anything about it?), Russia (and each day under Putin makes it worse, but the US president has 'seen into his soul', so that makes it alright), most of the former USSR republics in Central Asia, along with pretty much most of Africa, plus whatever I forget now (it's snowing and I'm having a warm cup of sake). Yes, Iran is a theocracy, and an evil one too - your point is? How do you decide who to fuck with, and in what order?
Please don't say oil.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
I think GP's point, and the answer to his rhetorical question is, maybe we shouldn't fuck with anyone at all. I don't see anything that's worth the blood of thousands of civilians and tens of thousands of soldiers, beacuse 9/11 is what happens when you fuck with other cultures, the current Iranian regime is what happens when you fuck with other democratic governments, Iraq is what happens when you fuck with other soverign countries.
The US is in a location not easily attacked by anyone else. Our nearest neighbors are Canada and Mexico, and Siberian Russia. No sane government would dare attack us on our soil, and no insane government would have the means to do so. And quite frankly, if we weren't poking our noses around the world trying to enforce our rebranded form of colonialism, nobody would have attacked us at all.
Yes, certain things may require our assistance. I know I'm invoking Godwin, but the rise to power of the Nazis was one of them. But our assistance was requested. We were actively engaged in the war through the shipping of war supplies even before Pearl Harbor, and the Europeans practically begged for us to send troops over by the time the US began its counteroffensive.
But such are very special cases where by gaining control of the Atlantic ocean, US security would be threatened by Nazi Germany, and of the Pacific ocean, US security would be threatened by Imperial Japan (albeit not terribly much without ICBM's). Other than that, there has been no instance since where the US's security was threatened, only US "interests," which is a better word for "people who have lots of money and give lots of it to our corrupt politicians."
The answer you gave is why the rest of the world won't shed a single tear if another 9/11 happened. Because they've already seen through the moral, humanitarian, security facade, and they know us for the greedy, self-serving bastards that we actually are--which isn't the problem in and of itself if we only didn't pretend to be the righteous saviors of the rest of the world and try to stick our "morality" into everyone else's asses whenever we do intervene. If everyone here thought the same as you, I wouldn't be surprised if the US implodes upon itself trying to stop the mass wave of terrorists at our front door. In fact, that might already be happening.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."